459 U.S. 932 | SCOTUS | 1982
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
Adhering to my view that capital punishment is unconstitutional under all circumstances, I would grant certiorari and vacate petitioner’s death sentence. However, even if I believed that the death penalty could constitutionally be imposed under certain circumstances, I would vacate the death sentence in this case because both the trial court’s instructions concerning the standard of proof and the State Supreme Court’s standard for reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence failed to assure a reliable sentencing determination.
Following petitioner Horace Butler’s conviction for murder, the trial court conducted a separate sentencing proceeding in accordance with South Carolina law, S. C. Code §16-3-20(B) (Supp. 1981). In order to impose the death penalty, the State was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of at least one statutory aggravating circumstance. § 16-3-20(C). The State alleged two aggravating circumstances: that the murder occurred during the commission of a rape and that the murder occurred during the
Recognizing the extraordinary consequences of the capital sentencing process, this Court has stressed “the need for reliability in the determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific case.” Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 305 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.) (footnote omitted). See Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U. S. 586, 604 (1978) (opinion of Burger, C. J.). Accordingly, “we have invalidated procedural rules that tended to diminish the reliability of the sentencing determination.” Beck v. Alabama, 447 U. S. 625, 638 (1980). In this case, errors committed by the trial judge at the sentencing stage and by the State Supreme Court on appeal seriously undermined the reliability of the sentencing determination.
The sentencing court’s instructions to the jury concerning reasonable doubt impermissibly lowered the standard of proof required to establish the aggravating circumstance of rape. South Carolina’s death penalty statute requires that proof of aggravating circumstances be established beyond a
Here the sentencing judge’s instructions significantly undercut the full constitutional protection afforded by the reasonable-doubt standard. The jury was told that reasonable doubt means “a substantial doubt for which an honest person seeking the truth can give a real reason,” and is “not a weak or slight doubt, but ... a serious or strong or substantial well-founded doubt as to the truth of the matters asserted by the state.” See 277 S. C., at 458, 290 S. E. 2d, at 4. At a minimum, instructions equating reasonable doubt with “substantial doubt” can confuse the jury about the proper standard of proof. See Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U. S. 478, 488 (1978). When the instructions also define reasonable doubt as a “serious or strong or substantial well-founded doubt,” they create a serious danger that the jury may have found the existence of the aggravating circumstance on a lesser showing than “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Viewed in their entirety, the instructions substantially reduced the reliability of the jury’s finding of the aggravating circumstance of rape. “Such a risk cannot be tolerated in a case in which the defendant’s life is at stake.” Beck v. Alabama, supra, at 637 (discussing failure to give a jury the option of convicting of a lesser included offense).
The errors in the jury instructions were compounded by the South Carolina Supreme Court’s failure to ensure the existence of a sufficient evidentiary basis for the jury’s determination. South Carolina law requires the State Supreme Court to review all death sentences and to determine whether the evidence supports the jury’s finding of the existence of one or more statutory aggravating circumstances. §§ 16-3-25(A) and (C)(2). In this case, the court rejected petitioner’s argument that the evidence of rape was insufficient to submit the aggravating circumstance to the jury. The court stated: “Any evidence direct or circumstantial reasonably tending to prove the guilt of the accused creates a jury issue.” 277 S. C., at 457, 290 S. E. 2d, at 4 (emphasis in
The South Carolina Supreme Court’s use of the “any evidence” rule to review death sentences is inconsistent with this Court’s decision in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979). Jackson established a constitutional standard of review for criminal convictions, holding that due process requires a reviewing court to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Id., at 318-319.
The State as respondent does not dispute the applicability of Jackson. Instead, it argues that the standard of review utilized by the state court was “equivalent to that required in Jackson.” Brief in Opposition 6. Indeed, according to the State, “the South Carolina Supreme Court has fully embraced, and in fact anticipated the standard of review required by this Court in Jackson.” Ibid. These assertions are simply inaccurate. The South Carolina Supreme Court’s “any evidence” standard is substantively identical to the “no evidence” rule of Thompson, and the state court itself has long equated the two formulations. In State v. Bailey, 253
In short, the procedures employed at both the trial and appellate levels did not adequately ensure the reliable imposition of the death sentence. Under these circumstances, the death sentence must be vacated.
Petitioner, a Negro, had stated to the police that he had met the white victim on her way home, that she had agreed to accompany him to a secluded area, that she had voluntarily engaged in sexual relations with him, that she had then told him she would claim that he had raped her, and that he had panicked and shot her. There was evidence that the victim had received a blow to the head before being shot.
The term “reasonable doubt” conveys its own “unmistakable meaning,” while “the cumulative effect resulting from the reiteration of the same idea by the use of the words and phrases ‘well founded doubt,’ ‘substantial doubt,’ and others of like meaning, is well calculated to fritter away
The “substantial doubt” instruction has been widely criticized. E. g., United States v. Zimeri-Safie, 585 F. 2d 1318 (CA5 1978); United States v. Wright, 542 F. 2d 975 (CA7 1976), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 1073 (1977); Laird v. State, 251 Ark. 1074, 476 S. W. 2d 811 (1972); State v. Thorpe, - R. I. -, 429 A. 2d 785 (1981).
Many courts have disapproved the requirement that a juror be able to articulate a reason for his doubt. E. g., Dunn v. Perrin, 570 F. 2d 21 (CA1), cert. denied, 437 U. S. 910 (1978); Commonwealth v. Robinson, 382 Mass. 189, 415 N. E. 2d 805 (1981).
While Jackson involved habeas corpus review by a federal court of a state-court conviction, “[t]he implications of Jackson are not limited to the habeas corpus context.” The Supreme Court, 1978 Term, 93 Harv. L. Rev. 60, 215 (1979). Because the standard outlined in Jackson is constitutionally required, state courts are obligated to apply it on direct review.
Lead Opinion
Sup. Ct. S. C. Certiorari denied.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
Adhering to my view that the death penalty is in all circumstances cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U. S. 153, 227 (1976), I would vacate the death sentence in this case.
